Boulder Civic Area Project with Prekindergarteners and their FamiliesScroll down to learn more about how we gathered ideas from the children, or:

Three assumptions guide the project:

1...Young children have a great deal to teach us about possibilities for planning public spaces, specifically the Boulder Civic Area.

2...In order to gather the children’s opinions in a meaningful way, we have to offer them the time, space, and resources necessary to gain a strong understanding of the project.

3...In order to know the context of the children’s opinions, we have to involve their families, since they primarily visit the Boulder Civic Area together.

Teachers began slowly, offering the children chances to interact with the Civic Area space in different ways. They offered no objective or end goal, but simply observed.

The children and their families visited the Boulder Civic Area in October for a picnic. While everyone socialized, teachers took note of what they saw the children doing:

During the weeks following the picnic, the children examined photos of the Boulder Civic Area. The photos were very basic scenery shots, available from the public slideshow on the City of Boulder website:

The children recalled very specific stories and details about many of the photos. It impressed teachers when the children's knowledge of the space surpassed their own. The children's knowledge had clearly developed over time and over multiple visits to the space with their families. Here are a few examples:

Lily: "Hey I have been to that river! I let my dog go in, she’s pretty crazy in the water and she tries to go in the deep water!"

Madeline: "That place is too far away to walk to the Farmers Market!"

Bella: "Oh! I've been there, I've been there! It's right next to the hot dog place!"

Teachers then printed slightly faded versions of the photos that seemed to generate the most discussion. They offered them to the children with markers, and invited the children to draw their ideas about ways they could change the space directly onto the photos.

Themes found in the children's drawings:-Adding colors and embellishments-Adding new places for games to be played-Adding elements to and near the creek-Making connections between things they already like to do and possibilities for the Civic Area

Next, a series of field trips were organized to give each child a chance to ride the bus to visit the Civic Area during school hours with friends and parents:

After the field trips, teachers asked the children to talk about their favorite experiences in the Boulder Civic Area. The photos below depict their responses:

Each time we visited or revisited our experiences in the Civic Area, we asked the children to talk to us about any ideas they had for making it better.